Welcome to Gracie-Barra Marbella. Our academy trains and competes in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), grappling and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Join us in beautiful Marbella, Spain training the most effective martial arts in the world. Learn more about the academy, its instructors, or read our blog below.
Gracie-Barra Marbella traveled to Málaga a few weeks ago, where two of our members participated in the Closed Fights amateur MMA competition, held at the new gym of our friends Pablo Espejo and Luis Quiñones. Both our fighters, Leo Galati and Mirkko won their bouts, impressively! Check out the videos below:
Leo Galati vs Jose Maria (Closed Fights Demolition) from Matt Henderson on Vimeo.
Mirkko vs Jorge Giner (Closed Fights Demolition) from Matt Henderson on Vimeo.
We are excited to announce the following two upcoming seminars:
YAN CABRAL (Saturday, March 28)
This coming Saturday, March 28, at the Demolition Fight Center, in Malaga, Spain, world champion Yan Cabral will hold a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seminar. Details below:
Who: Yan Cabral
When: Saturday, 28 of March, from 16-19 hrs
Where: Demolition Fight Center, Malaga, Spain
Cost: 30 euros
More information at the Demolition Fight Center website.
PABLO CABO (PALETA) (Wednesday, April 1)
Next Wednesday, Gracie-Barra Marbella veteran Pablo Cabo (Bronze medal finisher at the BJJ world championships) will hold a seminar at Platinum Gym, during which he’ll present a number of the things that he’s learned from the past year living in London, England and training at world champion Roger Gracie’s gym.
Who: Pablo Cabo (Paleta)
When: Wednesday, 1 of April, from 20-21:30 hrs
Where: Platinum Gym (Gracie-Barra Marbella training center), Puerto Banus, Spain
Cost: 10 euros
If you will be attending the Pablo Cabo seminar, please confirm with an email to info@gbmarbella.com . Thanks!
At the beginning of this month, the annual Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu European Championships were held in Lisbon, Portugal at the Casal Vistosos Sport Complex. The team from GB Marbella always competes in this event, and this year the event was larger than ever. We’ve heard that close to 1,500 individuals competed for the coveted medals in 2009.
This year GB Marbella sent 10 people to compete, who returned home with seven medals:
In addition to these, Brandon and Javi Bombero had really good showings in the white-belt category, and Leo Galati had the misfortune of being paired with the current world champion in his first purple-belt fight. (In fact, Leo had an excellent fight with the world champion. It could have easily been the final!)
As always, our favorite photographer, designer and BJJ tough-girl Caroline Azzi was there to take photos. We hope to have them up an online soon!
In other news, our good friend Jude Samuel, a black belt from Roger Gracie’s gym in London who frequently visits Marbella and trains with us, had an amazing performance at the European’s, winning gold in his black-belt category, and silver in the open class, losing only to the legendary Fabio Gurgel!
All in all, it was a fantastic event. We had a lot of fun, got to see our BJJ buddies from around Spain, and even had a chance to take some photos with Rickson and Kron Gracie! Looking forward to next year!…
The rains and cooler weather bring wintertime to Marbella, and that means intensified training as we get ready for some local tournaments and the European championships in January. While focusing on training, we’ve been lazy in updating the blog, so here’s a big article with the latest news.
Welcome guest instructor, Vinicius Moura!
While coach Edson is back in Brazil, we’ve got a great guest instructor taking care of the class, Vinicius Moura. Vinny is a black belt under legendary maestro, Soca, and is proving to be a fantastic trainer. His speciality is standup/judo, and so every Monday we focus on that. I have to say standup has always been the worst part of my game, and so I’m pretty happy to be improving those skills.
Vinny’s been doing a great job filling in while Edson’s awaw, and as a result the club continues to grow to almost 20 people per class!
Augusto takes warmups to a professional level
One thing is for sure, our guys are going to arrive at the upcoming tournaments in great shape!, as our warm-up sessions have been taken over by our very own Augusto Aloisio. Augusto is a professional personal trainer, and has taken charge of the pre-class warm-ups. He’s been structuring the 30-minute session to include explosive duration exercises, core strengthening, and abdominal work.
Describing the warm-ups as intense would be an understatement, but we are all really happy that Augusto has stepped up into this role, as it’s making a huge difference in our physical preparation.
Best wishes for coach Edson with his injury.
Coach Edson “Sururu” Jorge has been down in Brazil the past couple of months, involved in a number of activities such as helping UFC champion George St. Pierre prepare for his (winning) fight against Jon Fitch, and preparing to fight André Chatuba in the sixth edition of the Juiz de Fora MMA event.
We were all really looking forward to Edson’s fight. Chatuba is a very tough competitor, and a win for Edson in this fight could have easily paved the way to participation in headline MMA events in the USA or Japan.
But last week we got the terrible news that Edson has suffered a serious knee injury in training. In addition to missing the fight, he’s going to have to have surgery and a period of recovery.
We know that Edson is terribly disappointed about this. We just want to say,
“Keep your head up, Edson. You’re a great person and athlete, and we’re all behind you!”
Preparation for upcoming tournaments
We’re currently training for three possible upcoming tournaments.
Barcelona (December 6-7). The Vulcan tournament last year was a huge success. Many people said it’s the best organized tournament ever in Spain.
Rota (December 13). The US soldiers are preparing a tournament in at the base in Rota. It will be a Gi tourney, with two weight classes, and all belt categories. Contact David Turner on djturner11@yahoo.com for details.
European Championships (January 30 - February 1). As always, we’re preparing to go defend our medals at the Europeans!
Right up there at the top of the list of favorite visitors to GB Marbella, British MMA fighter and guitar player, the one and only, Mr. Lee Doski has few peers. Nothing brightens our summer more than the appearance of his half-toothless smile gracing our gym.
Lee first came down last summer, and became an instant friend of all. He’s got the class, humor and martial arts skills that make him a true representative of today’s MMA sport.
We’ve really enjoyed Lee being around this summer, and have benefitted from having the opportunity to train, roll and spend time with him. As he’ll be heading back to the UK this weekend to continue preparing for his next fight, we invited him to give the Move of the Week. Thanks Lee, and all the best. Look forward to seeing you again next summer!
Friday night was kinda sad for us at GB Marbella, as it was the last night of instruction from our guest professor, Carlos Sapaõ Ban.
To close the month, Carlos gave a special workshop, beginning with some classic BJJ self defense techniques, and closing the night with a series (progression) of attacks and submissions beginning with a choke from the guard which, even though many of us had never seen it, turns out to also be a classic BJJ technique.
We want to wish Carlos all the very best in his career, and as a close friend of our teacher, Edson Sururu Jorge, we hope that Carlos will have a chance to return and continue supporting the group.
Carlos now leaves for a few weeks giving workshops in Poland, before returning to the United States. Have a safe trip, Carlos. It was great having you with us this summer!
We also want to say a big thanks and express our appreciation to professor Edson Jorge, for taking good care of us during his extended stay in Brazil. While away, Edson is helping to keep our jiu-jitsu sharp by organizing superb guest instruction from world class athletes like Carlos. Thanks, Edson! We’re all looking forward to your quick return to Spain!
Finally, we’ll close with a final interview from Carlos:
Guest instructor Carlos “Sapaõ” Ban demonstrates a reverse triangle submission as a counter to a sweep attempt:
Guest instructor Carlos “Sapaõ” Ban shows us a fantastic spider guard sweep:
I’ve got some very exciting news to report! We’re honored to have a new guest coach in town, Carlos “Sapaõ” Ban. Sapaõ, who’s a close friend of Edson and a Ralph Gracie black belt, will be spending the summer months with us here in Marbella, teaching BJJ, grappling and his specialty, MMA.
Carlos has spent almost a decade living and training in the United States, first in California with his teacher Ralph Gracie, and then most recently taking up residence in Las Vegas, perfecting his MMA at the Brazilian Top Team (Las Vegas), with the full support of his sponsors, Manto Fight Wear, Jiu Jitsu ProGear.com and Koral Kimonos.
In just the first week in Marbella, it’s amazing to experience a completely new BJJ game, as well as Carlos’ unique approach to training. In addition, Carlos speaks perfect Spanish and American english!
You can read more about Sapaõ at the link below, or feel free to come by Platinum Gym on Mon, Wed and Fri at 8:00 pm, Tues and Thur at 6:00 pm (MMA/grappling) for some great training. Of course, Carlos is available for privates and seminars while he’s here.
http://barrabrothersca.com/index_files/bio.html
Last week we said goodbye to Augusto “Tio Chico” Vieira, a close friend of Edson who visited us for two months as guest instructor.
During the months he was here, Tio Chico became a friend to us all, and taught us some amazing jiu-jitsu. To give you an idea just how good he is, consider that this year at the BJJ Mundiales, he barely lost to the very guy that choked out the mythical Kron Gracie, and eventual gold medalist. And just prior to leaving, he spent his last weekend here in Sevilla, competing at the Hemo Hold grappling tournament, where he took first place in both his category and absolute, beating, in the process, some of Spain’s best grapplers.
You can certainly expect to see big things in the future for Tio Chico!
Augusto now leaves Marbella with destination New York, where he’ll spend some time with Renzo Gracie, and set his plans for his future.
With that, we wish Tio Chico all the best in his career. Thanks for two great months!
Gracie-Barra Marbella had two participants in this past weekend’s Hemo Hold Submission Wrestling tournament in Sevilla, Spain, and the results were astounding!
Augusto Aloisio
Our Argentinean sensation Augusto Aloisio has quickly established himself as one of the top competitors in Spain. Ten fights in a day? Broken arm? The other guy weighs 105kg? No problemo — Augusto always finds a way to win, and that’s what happened this weekend, as “Augu” won both his weight category, and the overall absolute title in the Intermediate Category. (And get this: Augusto right now is walking around in a full arm cast, due to an injury he suffered in his second of five fights!)
Congratulations, Augusto! Videos of the fights are being processed and will be added to this article within the next day.
Augusto “Tio Chico” Vieira
As many of you know, GB Marbella has had the honor the past few months of having a guest instructor in Marbella, Augusto “Tio Chico” Vieira. Tio Chico is a close friend of Edson, and a clear up-and-comer on the competition BJJ scene. He has been an amazing instructor for us, showing us moves and details that we’ve never seen before.
In his final days in Marbella, Augusto took the opportunity to travel this weekend to compete with our other Augusto in the Hemo Hold tournament, where he put in two great fights, winning both his category and the absolute title in the prestigious Advanced category. In his first fight, he was able to finish top Brazilian fighter Paulo Sergio de Souza with an arm triangle, and in the absolute fight, with one of Spain’s elite grappling fighters, Tito Beltran, was able to finish with a rear naked choke!
Congratulations, Augusto (That sounds familiar!…)
Videos
Below are videos of some of the fights. More coming soon…
Augusto “Tio Chico” Vieira vs Paulo Sergio de Souza
Augusto “Tio Chico” Vieira vs Tito Beltran
Augusto Aloisio vs Antonio Vadia
Augusto Aloisio vs Enrique Marín
Augusto Aloisio vs David Aranda
Augusto Aloisio vs Samuel Sanvicente
Hey everybody,
We’re happy to announce a seminar with Augusto “Tio Chico” in La Linea, on Saturday, 12 July. The time will be 10 AM to 1 PM. Bring both the kimono, and grappling clothes. Look to see you there!
Here’s a Google Maps link to the location:
Gracie Barra Marbella has the distinct honor to have rising international BJJ start Augusto “Tio Chico” in Marbella during the months of June and July. Check out the following micro-interview from last night’s class, along with his highlight video at the end:
Be sure to check out the following highlight reel from Augusto Tio Chico:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaFga4SDPRs
Hi everybody,
Platinum has re-opened their doors, and we’re once again training there, Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM. This month we have a special guest here: Tio Chico, who you all will remember came and gave us a great seminar earlier this summer, prior to heading off to the US to compete in the BJJ Mundiales.
Our coach Edson Jorge is presently helping George St. Pierre train and improve his jiu-jitsu (in preparation for his upcoming UFC belt defense against Jon Fitch) at the Gracie Barra academy in Rio de Janeiro. Sweet! Edson should be back in town around late June.